There has been scant black presence or even visibility inside the arena at the GOP Convention taking place this week here in Cleveland, notwithstanding the fact that this is a majority black city. In fact, early indications are that there may be fewer African American delegates at the event than at any convention since 1964, the year the GOP nominated Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, whose disdain for the black vote -- if not black people -- was, to be be declaratory about it, a self-evident truth.
The black folk who thus far have had a turn at the convention microphone would be called, in the parlance of our forebears, an embarrassment to the race. Darryl Glenn, the Colorado candidate for the US Senate, and Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke, in particular, seemed zealously out of touch with about 95% of the black people in America, including the large number of socially conservative African Americans. As for Dr. Ben Carson, let's just say some people should be brain surgeons and stay away from politics.
I do intend to watch tonight when one of my neighborhood ministers, Rev. Darrell Scott of mega church New Spirit Revival Center, takes the mike. He gained the first dab of his fifteen minutes a few months ago as an apparent organizer of the aborted attempt to have 100 black ministers meet with Donald Trump at the latter's NYC headquarters, reportedly to endorse his candidacy. When word of the gathering leaked, many of the pastors hastily headed for de Nile River, claiming they had been misled as to the meeting's intent.
Scott is scheduled to speak at 9:10 EDT tonight. I'm most curious to hear him. He will be the second black man with local ties to have a platform at the Convention. But Don King deserves a post all his own.
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